Agricultural application of digestates derived from agricultural and municipal organic wastes: a health risk-assessment for heavy metals.

A Human-health Risk Assessment was performed for an agricultural site in North-East Italy undergone digestate application to (i) check the compliance of digestate land spreading with the Italian and European regulations on contaminated agricultural soils and (ii) evaluate how resulting risk estimations can be influenced by the applied modeling assumptions. The assessment estimated the risk related to adults and children intake of Heavy Metals (HM) contained in crops at concentrations estimated by a soil-plant transfer model based on the substance-specific soil-water partition coefficients. Eight different scenarios were investigated, according to different digestate type (from biowaste and agro-industrial byproducts), digestate application techniques and soil background concentrations. Non-risky situations resulted in all scenarios involving digestate application. The totality of calculated non-carcinogenic Hazard Indexes (HI) and carcinogenic total risk (RTOTC) resulted below 0.02 and 3E10-9, respectively. In contrast with the definition, non-carcinogenic risks were associated with the considered soil background concentrations, with HI s up to 1.7 for child receptors, while carcinogenic risk was calculated below the concern threshold (i.e., RTOTC < 10-5). Accordingly, this study highlighted (i) non-concerning situations related with lawful application of digestates and (ii) the need to improve the modeling of bioavailability to plant of HMs background content of soil.

Delivery systems for agriculture: Fe-EDDHSA/CaCO3 hybrid crystals as adjuvants for prevention of iron chlorosis.

Fe-EDDHSA/CaCO3 hybrid crystals are synthesized and tested in vitro to determine their effect in treating iron chlorosis in kiwifruit plants, used as a proof of concept. Under the alkaline conditions provided by the calcareous substrate, plants release protons that dissolve the hybrids and trigger Fe uptake. These CaCO3 hybrids represent a new system for active molecule delivery in agriculture.

Effect of iron sulphate on the phosphorus speciation from agro-industrial sludge based and sewage sludge based compost.

Composting is considered a suitable process for organic waste management, providing stable products that can be safely utilized as fertilizers, but little is still known about the variation of phosphorous (P) extractability during the stabilization process. In this work, sequential chemical extraction (SCE) with increasing strength extractants (H2O; 0.5M NaHCO3 pH 8.5; 0.1M NaOH, 1M HCl) was applied for P speciation over 56days of composting of either agro-industrial or urban wastewater sludge with green waste treated (AICFe+; SSCFe+) or not (AICFe-; SSCFe-) with FeSO4 (2%v/v). Composting strongly reduced the H2O-P, promoting the organic-P (Po) mineralization from the labile fraction (H2O+NaHCO3 40%), in addition to the increases of NaHCO3- and HCl-extractable inorganic-P (Pi) in both AICFe- and SSCFe- (+20% on average). The FeSO4 treatment did not negatively affect the process, reducing the Po mineralization during composting by increasing the NaOH-P, also protecting this fraction from fixation in the sparingly soluble fraction. The final P fractionation (%) was in AICFe-: NaOH (41)=NaHCO3 (38)>HCl (18)>H2O (3); in AICFe+: NaOH (53)>NaHCO3 (24)=HCl (22)>H2O (2); in SSCFe-: NaOH (46)>NaHCO3 (29)>HCl (21)>H2O (4) and in SSCFe+: NaOH (66)>NaHCO3 (13)>HCl (20)>H2O (1). Composting reduced the more easily leachable fraction (labile-Po), reducing the risk of P loss by increasing the long-term available P fraction (NaOH-P). This was enhanced by the FeSO4 addition. Further investigation into soil behaviour and plant availability of P from this source is needed.

Reliability and validity of the SPAID-G checklist for detecting psychiatric disorders in adults with intellectual disability.

SPAID (Psychiatric Instrument for the Intellectually Disabled Adult) is the first Italian tool-package for carrying out psychiatric diagnosis in adults with Intellectual Disabilities (ID). It includes the "G" form, for general diagnostic orientation, and specific checklists for all groups of syndromes stated by the available classification systems. SPAID was established to provide an easy and quick tool for daily practice of the personnel working with ID. The present study was aimed at evaluating psychometric and psychodiagnostic characteristics of the SPAID-G and at supplying new data on the prevalence rate of psychiatric disorders in a multicentric Italian sample of people with ID living in different settings. The SPAID-G was randomly applied to 304 participants with ID attending residential facilities or assessment services across Italy. A part of the sample was also consecutively assessed through the use of DASH, PDD-MRS and by the clinical application of the DSM-IV TR criteria. The correlation between SPAID-G scores and those provided by other evaluation tools was over 60%. Additionally, the internal consistency and inter-rater reliability resulted to be good. Psychopathological symptoms were detected in approximately 40% of the sample. Respectively, autistic spectrum disorders, impulse control disorders, mood disorders, and dramatic personality disorders were the diagnostic orientations providing the most prevalent over-threshold scores. SPAID-G seems to be a valid diagnostic tool, quick and easy to use in psychiatric disorders assessment within the Italian population with ID.

TG-DTA, DRIFT and NMR characterisation of humic-like fractions from olive wastes and amended soil.

The purpose of the present study is to investigate, by means of thermogravimetric analysis (TG) and differential thermal analysis (DTA), diffuse reflectance infrared Fourier transform (DRIFT) and 2D nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopies, the structural features of the humic-like fraction (HLF) from olive pulp (OP), its effluents originated from the fermentation processes for hydrogen (EH2) and methane production (ECH4) and humic acid (HA) from soil amended with each of these materials. A considerable structural modification emerged between the HLF, in particular from the ECH4 effluent, which was characterised by a high content of polyphenolic and polypeptidic substances. The short-term amendment trial with OP and EH2 indicated that no chemical or structural changes in soil HA appeared. In contrast, the amendment with ECH4 substantially influenced the chemical and structural composition of soil HA. The structural interpretation performed by 2D NMR indicated the presence of aliphatic and aromatic protons while the sugar-like content and O-CH3 groups decreased with respect to the soil control HA. It emerges from this study that olive wastes contain stabilised humic-like material that may be recycled as an amendment in areas where olive trees are cultivated.